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Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction
A concise rationale for building any curriculum by systematically answering four questions about educational purposes, learning experiences, their organization, and their evaluation.
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What it’s about
In this foundational text of curriculum studies, Ralph W. Tyler distills the entire task of curriculum development into four fundamental questions: What purposes should the school seek? What learning experiences will attain them? How should those experiences be organized? And how can we know whether the purposes were achieved? Rather than prescribing answers, Tyler offers a disciplined procedure—drawing objectives from studies of learners, studies of contemporary life, and subject specialists, then screening them through a philosophy of education and a psychology of learning, stating them in behavioral-plus-content form, selecting and organizing experiences for continuity, sequence, and integration, and finally evaluating actual behavior change to feed a continuous improvement cycle. Adaptable from preschools to medical schools, the 'Tyler Rationale' gives educators a way to act intelligently and purposefully without stifling teacher judgment or reducing education to narrow, atomized objectives.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- An educator or school/college staff member who wants to build or improve an instructional program that genuinely educates students.
- The problem
- Many educational programs lack clearly defined purposes and coherent means to attain and verify them. Teachers feel uncertain, working intuitively without a systematic way to know whether they are accomplishing anything meaningful.
- The plan
- Identify and formulate educational purposes using studies of learners, contemporary life, and subject specialists.
- Screen candidate objectives through an educational philosophy and a psychology of learning, then state them in behavioral-and-content form.
- Select learning experiences that let students practice desired behavior, find satisfaction, and are within their reach.
- Organize experiences for continuity, sequence, and integration using organizing elements and principles.
- Evaluate behavior change at multiple points and use results to continuously revise the program.
- The payoff
- A curriculum with clear, defensible purposes and coherent means to attain them. · Teachers who understand objectives and can design responsive learning experiences. · Continuous improvement driven by evidence of actual student behavior change.